A Catholic school teacher talks with her Principal about
sex-education

You have requested that I provide intimate sex-education
instruction, detailing the "facts of life" to my Catholic
school students. This is to respectfully decline to comply with
your request, for that would involve taking an action explicitly
forbidden by the Catholic Church.

This internet posting has been set up to fully explicate the
reasons for my deciding to obey the Church, at the same time that
I am disobeying you for reasons of conscientious objection. I don't
take my decision lightly, and it is my
hope that the seriousness with which I regard this situation is
reflected in the care with which this site has been prepared.

Sex-education is only to be provided by the parents, either
"at home or in education centres chosen and controlled by
them." (John Paul II, Familiaris Consortio (On the Family), §37, 15 December 1981)

The teaching of the Catholic Church about sex-education is
contained within its age-old tradition, teaching that it is mainly
the family's responsibility to provide education for the Virtue
of Chastity forming the whole person.

In this sense, secular sex-education, which emphasizes healthy
clinical sexual functioning of the child, is inside out, for it does
not take into account the spiritual development of the person.
A Catholic "sex-education" which seeks in some way to imitate Secular
sex-education - the two worlds are unlikely ever to converge on any of their authentic, fundamental positions - is moving away from the ancient Catholic tradition and the
moral guidance protections it has historically afforded the
individual, family and society.

In the Catholic vision, the family has the primary responsibility to form the child for
chastity,

Because the parents know the child in a way only they can.

A teacher in a classroom with 10, 20 or 30 vigorous, boisterous
children, can never come to know the individual child with anything
approaching the familiarity of the parents.

Moreover, a teacher's limited interaction with a child for a single year of
its life, can never qualify her for the difficult task of
providing the primary spiritual formation of the child,

Which must proceed at stages.

The timing of some of these stages for an individual child, will be
out of sync with those of the hypothetical, "average"
child, some in advance and some behind.

No teacher, acting as a mere educational specialist, can supplant
the parents in exercising the intimate knowledge of the
child, complete with understanding about the child's maturity level, strengths and weaknesses, required to properly form him or her for chastity. Children
cannot be "batch processed" through their spiritual
formation, turned out as certified spiritual educational successes
the way a factory stamps out interchangeable parts. Their formation
for chastity must be custom tailored by the parents, with the
assistance of the Church, the schools and, whenever possible,
society.

The schools only act as assistants, as auxiliaries to the parents'
role as the prime educators of their children, according to the principle known as subsidiarity.

To the extent that the Catholic schools take some leadership role
in regards to chastity formation (which contains sex-education), it
may be to reinforce the parents' role, perhaps monitoring
the child's chastity formation and encouraging the parents to
properly undertake it.

But group instruction in the schools, especially in the mechanics
of sexual intercourse, can never meet the primary criterion
of the sex-education component of Catholic chastity formation,

That the imparting to the child of the intimate details of the
conjugal act of marriage,

Not offend the child's modesty, and

Not attract undue prurient interest in the information
itself.

The best use of that can be made, of the Catholic schools' unique
opportunity to influence parents and children for the better
towards chastity formation, is to help the parents acquire home
educational materials especially designed by competent, qualified
Catholic educators who appreciate the primacy of chastity in the
sex-education of children.

A teacher in a classroom … can never come to know the individual child with anything approaching the familiarity of the parents.…Her limited interaction with a child for a single year of its life, can never qualify her for the difficult task of providing the primary spiritual formation of the child.

To this end, the text you provided may be of use if sent home to
the parents, though that could only be certain if it were one
of the texts approved by the National Conference of Catholic
Bishops.

But there is no way that the children's dignity, privacy and innate
chastity can be respected while proceeding to provide group
instruction in so intimate a subject.

Because of this, I am respectfully declining to provide such
instruction, in the classroom, with the text you provided or
with any other. I will be happy to work with you in developing
a program of properly assisting the parents to impart this
intimate information within the proper domain of their primacy as
the first educators of their children.